Let me tell you how much I love, love, love when an author grips my feels from the beginning.
When they hold my heart in the palm of their hand and decide to cock their arm back and hurl it to the ground. Maybe stomp on it a little. Then they pick it back up, love on it and make it feel better. Then toss it right back to the ground and f*ck it up some more. And just go on this back and forth journey between making me laugh and making me cry until I reach the last page of the book and all I can say is, "wowwww."
I haven't experienced that type of read in a while. Then I picked up Bernice L. McFadden's Sugar and got exactly what I've been needing.
Book Review: Sugar by Bernice L. McFadden
Sugar, by Bernice L. McFadden
Sugar's life has been filled with disconnections. Mostly the need to stay distant and numb due to her line of work and everything that comes with it. The line of work stemming from a path laid out before her since birth that she would learn throughout growing up and becoming a woman, is much more difficult to get away from than anyone may think.
Then she lands in a small town and meets her neighbor, an older woman by the name of Pearl. They begin an unlikely friendship, irritating the gossiping, "holier than thou" folks of the pea-sized city and their bond grows into something beautiful that is progressive and healing for the both of them. Pearl begins to find pieces of herself that were lost and thought to be long gone after suffering a brutal, devastating loss of her young daughter. Sugar begins to see and experience more for herself than lying on her back and pleasing Johns to make a living. Passion returns to Pearl's marriage and Sugar even finds love.
But the ending of this story isn't happy. All questions swarming throughout your mind as you read will be answered, but they don't leave you with a warm and snuggly feeling. They leave you saying "Oh, sh*t." and that's what I love most about it.
10/10 recommend.
Let me know if you've read Sugar and share your thoughts! I am dying to talk about it with someone!
Fun Fact: Ms. Bernice has also written humorous erotica under the pen name Geneva Holliday... you know I'll have to check that out too!
-aew